Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Can Crimea happen in other places?

As everybody knows by now, Crimea once a part of Ukraine is now part of Russia due to a referendum giving almost 90 percent or more approval to get annexed by Russia. Although the vote approval maybe controversial but the population was already overwhelmingly Russian so it was just a foregone conclusion that they want to become part of Russia. Although the Russians justified their actions stating that their Russian speaking population was being discriminated against Russia has historical ties dating back centuries to Crimea, it still did not give them the right to annex it. As I said although the vote may have been controversial but it was the basis of being again part of Russia. And the fact is that the West could not have done anything short of war. And as everybody knows, the West (especially the U.S.) is in no mood to get involved in another military adventure where most of the lives lost will be Americans.
And I was surprised to see that some countries actually have supported this annexation notwithstanding the fact that they are also in trouble because of their minority ethnic population. So with this background, I was thinking that can this kind of event happen in other places, especially the ones where the majority of the population is of one ethnicity and they are being ruled by the minority or at least by people who are in the minority in their area but not in the whole country? And the answer is a bit iffy in this case.